Remember Your Promise - Levi Ackerman

Chapter 2

Dedicated Chapter Song: Winter - PVRIS

Don't lose sleep, you can't steal body heat from another. Ice cold to the touch. No, I'll never be your snow-covered lover. (Anna)

That shit was pathetic, I need love. I'm warm flesh and blood. Call me spineless but I've still got a heart between my lungs. You feel too little and I feel too much. (Levi)

      Breakfast wasn't any easier for the sleep-deprived Anna. Corporal Levi had suggested she stay in his room so he can watch over her, but she'd refused and stated she would rather sleep in the stables. Not being the faintest of hearts, the Corporal handed her a blanket and told her to do so. "Anna...you have hay in your hair..." Commander Hanji observed over breakfast. Anna rolled her eyes, shaking out her messy brown hair, which she still needed to cut. "Whatever." she murmured as she took the seat furthest from the Commander, near a brown-haired blue-eyed boy who seemed a little younger than her. "Welcome back, Anna." he smiled. She barely smiled back. "Yeah...thanks..." she kept her head down during all of breakfast as everyone planned her day for her. 

      The most she ate was a small bite of bread. The rest she gave to some brown-haired girl she'd learned was named Sasha. The Corporal seemed rather upset over that notion but didn't verbally express it. Rosaline had departed from the Scouts earlier that morning to return to her Underground Brigade. "Anna will be training with the ODM gear today to try and spark any memory she has of previously using it," Hanji announced. "Then tomorrow Mikasa will be in charge of trying to teach Anna how to properly use the swords. The day after that I'll be running some tests on her to try and..."

      Anna tuned them out, not even caring anymore that she didn't have a say in what she did anymore. When asked if she agreed to the terms of the weekly lineup, she just mumbled a "yes" and let everyone bicker on from there on.

     After breakfast, Anna was escorted to a certain training area, where she was instructed to wear certain straps and hook herself up to some strange wired device that would lift her up. "Nothing fancy. Just prove to us you can handle the basics." Levi stated.

      Anna looked away from him and just nodded. "Yeah. I've got it," she replied quietly. Levi sensed that she perhaps resented him. After all, she'd done her best to purposefully avoid him at all costs.

      He nodded at Eren, who cranked the lever to lift Anna into the air. She gasped as she felt her feet coming off the ground and she panicked, quickly falling backward. "Wah!" she exclaimed as she hung upside down. Levi put his face into his hands.

      "Try again?" Hanji sweetly smiled. "How the hell does this work?" Anna said, startled in shock. "This is impossible!" she tried to swing herself upright, but couldn't quite find the momentum. "You all use these for a living?"

      "Lower her," Levi ordered, his eyes full of disappointment and disdain. Anna sheepishly pulled her cape over her face, hoping it would make her invisible. Levi walked over to her, his feet crunching in the light layer of snow beneath them all. "Again." he insisted, peering down at her.

      Anna sighed and pulled her hood down. "Fine," she muttered and got back to her feet, waiting to be lifted up again. The next time was no different, ending up with Anna hanging upside down like a bat. In embarrassment, she had to quickly grab her shirt and pull it so that her bra would not be shown to everyone.

      Her green cape fell into her face, however, leaving everyone laughing at her. At that point, all she wanted to do was hide for the rest of the day. So, when she was lowered, that was what she did. It wasn't too hard to find her though, at least for Levi. Anna was tucked up in a lit up corner of the rafters of the stable in a bed of hay with a book perched in her lap.

      "So, are you now part bird?" he inquired. She ignored him, flipping a page in the book. "I'm talking to you." he crossed his arms. "I know," Anna replied, her eyes saddening as she read the words on the pages. "What is that you're reading?"

      "Nothing of your concern." she slipped it underneath a pile of hay and swung her legs over the beam, looking down at him. "Do you need me to clean your room again?" she asked politely. "No." he replied. "Do I need to perform another embarrassing test?"

      "Not today," he stated. "Though I am quite disappointed with you." Anna sighed, pulling her legs back up into the corner. "If only I had a nickel for every time I'd heard that sentence. I could be richer than the King." she huffed out a breath.

      "It's going to snow again tonight," Levi said. "You'll catch your death in this barn."
      "Oh, so now you care?" Anna scoffed. Levi furrowed his eyebrows. "Anna, it may not seem like it, but I do have a heart. I care about every member of this team more than you will probably ever realize."

      "Riiight." Anna tapped the side of her head. "Because of my amnesia, huh?" she sighed. "Look, I'm sorry for my attitude, heichou. I'm just really... really frustrated." she put her head into her hands. "I'm so confused. Everyone wants me to be a perfect soldier but I can't be who I once was. Maybe I was given a second chance to be a better person."

      "So you want to work out in the fields instead of fighting for humanity?" he looked at her in both shock and betrayal. "If it beats seeing more people I care about get hurt, then yes. Food supply is limited as it is. Why can't I help with that? Why do I have to continue to uphold the title of Humanity's Strongest?" she sighed, hopping down from the rafters.

      "What if I could just make things right? I might even actually have a chance to fall in love and have a family." she smiled. "Imagine that." she could help but let out a small laugh. "A family..." but she shook her head. "Sorry, Captain. I'll do my best during training." she saluted him.

      "A family? Is that what you desire?" He shifted his weight to another foot. He'd almost forgotten that when they first met, Anna was actually shorter than him. "Truth be told, I don't know. I think just the idea of finding love and being happy is a joyous one to me." she giggled, then quieted down. "But it just seems with my luck that won't ever happen." she let out a sigh. "Oh! It's snowing already?" Anna ran out of the barn and into the white storm. "Anna! You'll freeze out there!" Levi called after her. 

     Anna gasped, letting her head tilt back and her eyes shut as the snowflakes lightly kissed her skin. It was the first time she'd ever experienced snow that she could remember. Trapped underground for so long, then in a cold and rotting cell in the interior, it was a miracle to ever experience weather. She held out her pale and thin hands, letting the flakes fall into her palms and melt into tiny puddles. Not caring about who was watching her, she spun about in the snow, dancing in it. Levi watched her, wondering how she wasn't cold yet. 

      Truth be told, she was freezing, but her happiness of experiencing snow for the first time she could remember kept her spirits alive and kept her warm. That was until she fell into the snow from exhaustion. Levi ran over to her, seeing her skin was turning blue. "Anna," he called out, gently shaking her. She tiredly groaned but didn't open her eyes. With a sigh, he removed his cloak and wrapped it around her body, then gently lifted her into his arms. "You never listen," he mumbled, taking her up to his room.